Asia

2 days agoShareSaveNeyaz FarooqueeBBC News, DelhiShareSaveIndia and New Zealand have restarted free trade talks a decade after negotiations fell apart, as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon began his five-day tour of Delhi where he held bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The two sides have agreed to begin the first round of negotiations next month.
The announcement is a “major breakthrough” in the economic relationship between the two countries, Luxon said.
“India holds significant potential for New Zealand and will play a pivotal role in doubling New Zealand’s exports by value over the next 10 years,” Luxon said.
Bilateral trade between the two countries is valued at under $2bn (£1.55bn) currently.
Luxon is a keynote speaker at an ongoing geopolitical conference in Delhi, which will also be attended by the US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
Besides trade, New Zealand said it was deepening its engagement with India across areas such as defence,..

5 days agoShareSaveSoutik BiswasIndia correspondent•@soutikBBCShareSaveA political storm is brewing in India, with the first waves already hitting the southern part of the country.
Leaders there are calling for mass mobilisation to protect the region’s political interests amid a heated controversy over the redrawing of electoral seats to reflect changes in population over time.
In a high-stakes push, they are urging citizens to “have more children”, using meetings and media campaigns to amplify their message: that the process of delimitation could shift the balance of power.
“Delimitation is a Damocles’ sword hanging over southern India,” says MK Stalin, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, one of India’s five southern states, and an arch rival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (The other four are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana.)
These five states account for 20% of India’s 1.4 billion people. They also outperform the rest of the country i..

5 days agoShareSaveYi MaBBC NewsReporting fromLondonShareSaveThe Chinese government has promised new child care subsidies, increased wages and better paid leave to revive a slowing economy. That is on top of a $41bn discount programme for all sorts of things, from dishwashers and home decor to electric vehicles and smartwatches.
Beijing is going on a spending spree that will encourage Chinese people to crack open their wallets.
Simply put, they are not spending enough.
Monday brought some positive news. Official data said retail sales grew 4% in the first two months of 2025, a positive sign for consumption data. But, with a few exceptions like Shanghai aside, new and existing home prices continued to decline compared to last year.
While the US and other major powers have struggled with post-Covid inflation, China is experiencing the opposite: deflation – when the rate of inflation falls below zero, meaning that prices decrease. In China, prices fell for 18 months in a row in the past t..

4 days agoShareSaveKathryn ArmstrongBBC NewsShareSaveHong Kong property tycoon Lee Shau-kee, who was once the richest man in Asia, has died at the age of 97.
The announcement was made by his property firm Henderson Land Development, of which he was chairman for more than 40 years.
The company said in a statement that Lee had died “in the company of his family” but did not specify a cause.
He was one of the city’s richest men. In February, Forbes put his net worth at just under $30bn (£23bn).
Lee was born in China’s southern Guangdong Province and moved to Hong Kong as a young man, where he began his business career in gold and foreign currency exchange before switching to real estate.
He established Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) – one of the city’s largest property developers – in 1958, alongside two other founders.
Lee – who was nicknamed “Uncle Four” as he was the fourth eldest of his siblings – then struck out on his own in 1976 and founded Henderson Land Development, wh..

4 days agoShareSaveKoh EweBBC NewsShareSaveA Chinese influencer living in Taiwan must leave the island within days or be deported, Taiwanese authorities said, after she posted videos supporting the idea of China taking the island by force.
The rare move comes at a time of heightened cross-strait tensions and increasing suspicions of Chinese influence operations on the democratic island.
Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency (NIA), which revoked the influencer’s visa, said that her “behaviour advocates the elimination of Taiwan’s sovereignty and is not tolerated in Taiwanese society”.
The influencer, identified by authorities with her surname Liu, had relocated from mainland China to Taiwan on a dependent visa after marrying a Taiwanese man.
Liu has until 24 March to leave Taiwan before she is forcibly deported, local media reported.
She would not be able to apply for another dependent visa for five years, according to an NIA statement on Saturday.
It is extremely rare for the authoriti..

6 days agoShareSaveAnbarasan EthirajanSouth Asia Regional EditorShareSaveThe dramatic political developments in Bangladesh that led to prime minister Sheikh Hasina being ousted last year have thrown up many surprises – including Dhaka’s growing closeness with one-time foe Pakistan.
Last month, after decades of troubled relations, the two countries began directly trading for the first time, with Dhaka importing 50,000 tonnes of rice from Pakistan. Direct flights and military contacts have also been revived, visa procedures have been simplified, and there are reports of co-operation on security matters.
The countries – separated by the landmass of India – have deep, painful historical ties. The animosity between them goes back to 1971, when Bangladesh – then known as East Pakistan – launched a struggle to gain independence from Islamabad. India supported the Bengali rebels during the nine-month war which led to the formation of Bangladesh.
While the scars from that period run deep, Dhaka..

5 days agoShareSaveCherylann MollanBBC News, MumbaiShareSaveA fashion show held last week in a picturesque, snow-clad town in Indian-administered Kashmir has sparked a major controversy that is still simmering.
The show, by the well-known fashion brand Shivan & Narresh, was held last Friday at a ski resort in Gulmarg to display their skiwear collection. The label is the first big, non-local brand to hold a fashion show in Kashmir, a scenic Himalayan region which has seen decades of violence.
But it soon sparked outrage among locals, politicians and religious leaders in Muslim-majority Kashmir after fashion publisher Elle India posted a video on social media which showed some models wearing underwear or bikinis. Locals were also angry over another video – shared by online magazine Lifestyle Asia – of a party held after the show, which showed people drinking alcohol outdoors.
Many took offence with the show being held in the holy month of Ramadan – a time of fasting and prayer for Muslim..

5 days agoShareSaveTiffany WertheimerBBC NewsShareSaveA US influencer who was filmed taking a wild baby wombat away from its distressed mother in Australia has said she is “truly sorry” and received thousands of death threats over the incident.
Sam Jones, who calls herself an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter”, was filmed picking up the joey on the side of a road, while laughing and running over to a car, while the mother chases after them.
It sparked a huge backlash, with Australian PM Anthony Albanese challenging her to “take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there”.
In a lengthy statement on her Instagram page, Jones says she was trying to get the animals safely off the road.
She said, as can be seen in the video, that the mother runs off the road, but the baby does not, and Jones scoops it up. She says she ran across the road “not to rip the joey away from its mother, but from fear she might attack me”.
“The snap judgement I made in these moments was never from a pla..

5 days agoShareSaveNandhini VellaisamyBBC TamilShareSaveThe elderly woman gazes wistfully into the distance, her hands curled over a basket of tobacco, surrounded by the hundreds of cigarettes she has spent hours rolling by hand.
The photograph is one of several snapped by student Rashmitha T in her village in Tamil Nadu, featuring her neighbours who make traditional Indian cigarettes called beedis.
“No-one knows about their work. Their untold stories need to be told,” Rashmitha told the BBC.
Her pictures were featured in a recent exhibition about India’s labourers titled The Unseen Perspective at the Egmore Museum in Chennai.
All the photographs were taken by 40 students from Tamil Nadu’s government-run schools, who documented the lives of their own parents or other adults.
From quarry workers to weavers, welders to tailors, the pictures highlight the diverse, backbreaking work undertaken by the estimated 400 million labourers in India.
Many beedi rollers, for instance, are vulnerable..

3 days agoShareSaveKoh EweBBC NewsShareSaveIn some of his strongest rhetoric yet amid worsening cross-strait ties, Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te has labelled China a “foreign hostile force”.
He said Taiwan had “no choice but to take even more proactive measures” as a result, as he announced a raft of new national security measures, including reinstating a military court system and tightening the residency criteria for those from China, Hong Kong and Macau.
In response to Lai’s remarks, Chinese authorities called him a “destroyer of cross-straits peace” and a “creator of crisis”.
China claims the self-ruled Taiwan as its territory but Taiwan sees itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland.
China was quick to respond to Lai’s statement, with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua said China would have “no choice but to take decisive measures… [if] ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces dare to cross the red line”.
“Those who play with fire will surely be burned.”
Thi..